Beef Liverwurst

I spent yesterday from about 11 am to 2 am in the kitchen (with a few breaks here and there to enjoy the sunshine/moonlight. I was converting four pounds of the 22 lbs of beef liver that has been hanging out in the icebox into liverwurst. I based my recipe on this one, but with some changes:

1. I used beef liver instead of pork liver. To mellow it, I soaked it in milk overnight (something I recommend for the stronger beef liver).

2. I used pork shoulder roast, instead of pork butt. I do not necessarily recommend this change, as deboning was a pain, and all those muscle attachment points mean more intricate knife work, more waste (although all the waste meat went into the stock pot with the bone, and all the waste fat went into the rendering pot, so very little was really wasted), more tedious calculations (since I bought enough pork fat to match the amount of meat that I thought I had bought, I had to reweigh the fat once I knew how much reliable meat I had from the pork).

3. I used a mix of pimenton dulce with Hungarian paprika.

4. I roasted and ground all my spices.

5. I substituted a smaller amount of fresh nutmeg for mace, as I was out of mace.

6. I used yellow onions instead of white.

7. I added fresh, finely chopped French rue and lovage (both to help balance the beef liver - both were good additions). I used amounts roughly equal to the marjoram.

8. My butcher did not have wide casings, and I was not about to use casings that I had to sew (returning buttons to their rightful place is about the limits of my abilities with needle and thread). I used Saran wrap, tied knots in the ends, wrapped the middle with a fresh piece in the other direction, then stuffed the tubes in the upper parts of clean socks, folded the foot of the sock around and tied the toes to the opening, thus sealing the whole thing (the sock is just to reinforce the Saran wrap casing, which does the work of keeping the water out and the wurst in). I removed the socks after the ice bath and left the plastic casings on. I had no problem with bursting.

They came out great, but a little firmer than liverwurst usually is (more sliceable and less spreadible). The seasoning was good. It was a lot of work, created a lot of mess (the work bowls and the works of the grinder should be cleaned between each of the big grindings - if I were really in anal retentive food lab mode, I would have dipped everything in bleach solution, which is quite literally overkill, but you really do want to clean this stuff between stages). By the end I was tired, my feet hurt, and I was able to go to bed savoring the smell of liverwurst wafting through the house.

This morning I had my first espresso (which reminds me, I am about due for number two, well, actually three, but two needs to come first. What is the matter with me?), and had the courage to peek. What if it tasted bad and my day was lost (not to mention the ingredients)? What if all the people who knew that they were going to have liverwurst foisted on them had to be called and told, "well, it just didn't work out, sorry"? Could I live with the shame? The humiliation?

So I cut the casing on one of them and had a taste on a table water cracker. It was good. It would go well with a dry Riesling (possibly even a sweet wine, as many liver products go well with sauternes) or a crisp and hoppy beer (IPA seems about perfect, although the MacTarnahan's Amber Ale I am currently imbibing is a good fit, too).

Would I recommend this recipe? Only if you have many pounds of liver you need to consume, or if you want to experiment with seasonings and eventually build a better liverwurst. It is time consuming, hard work, involves handling stuff that most people would rather not handle (I know, I am a freak, I actually like playing with organs), and produces a product that is good, but not much different than a well-made commercial product.

On the other hand, it was fun, I have a much better understanding of liverwurst, and there is a good deal of satisfaction in knowing that the log cabin of liverwurst logs in the icebox was made from scratch in my own kitchen.

Next report: beef heart carnitas tacos!